Abstract
This article deals with the study of an assemblage of scrap bronze guns recovered from the Delta III site, identified as a Dutch merchant ship lost in the port of Cadiz, Spain, about the third quarter of the seventeenth century. This kind of remains is seldom preserved and therefore stands as a unique source for addressing modern bronze gunfounding. Its main characteristics and drawbacks were outlined and discussed on historical and archaeological grounds. The gun remains and casting by-products were recorded, and pieces were identified through their design, decoration, and marks. A metallurgical study of selected samples was carried out by visual inspection and microstructural and chemical analyses by light microscopy and scanning electron microscopy coupled with energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy. A better understanding of the quality and manufacturing process of the pieces and the conditioning factors of the failed casting was achieved by this approach. Results provided new insights into the gunfounding process, with emphasis on a renowned atelier of German bell and cannon founders, along with the associated international markets and recycling practices.
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Data availability
Research data are available at the Underwater Archaeology Center of the Andalusian Historical Heritage Institute, and at the Department of Materials Science, Metallurgical Engineering and Inorganic Chemistry, Faculty of Marine and Environmental Sciences, University of Cadiz, in Cadiz, Spain. Further information not included in this article is attainable to the corresponding author upon reasonable request.
Notes
For instance, British guns and other related supplies were in charge of the Board of Ordnance, which provisioned both the Army and the Navy. The same guns could often be used in either context and were usually cast in the same foundries (Lavery 1987:80).
The transport of bronze guns in stowage was not unusual, as pieces located at the hold of late-sixteenth and seventeenth-century shipwrecks attest to (e.g. Keith et al. 1997; Ridella et al. 2016). Old ordnance was also carried on board as cargo, to be sold or gifted. For instance, six culverin-type guns from the 60-gun galleon Santissimo Sacramento (1668) were dated from the mid-to-late sixteenth century (Brown 2005).
The location refers to the archaeological site. Coordinates were taken with a standard GPS by one of the authors (RGG).
Hot tearing is also referred to as hot cracking, hot shortness, and hot brittleness (Campbell 2011:465).
The English and commented edition of this treatise by Smith and Gnuci (1990) is referenced here.
Here is described the conventional procedure of seventeenth-century hollow casting. Experimental or uncommon methods were also proposed (e.g. Firrufino 1648:101–103), but their application was limited. Composite guns (iron-lead-copper) retrieved from the Batavia (1629) wreck site stand out (Green 1980). Local technical variations linked to operational and economic conditions should also be considered, as the Dutch and English non-standard bronze guns associated with the Portuguese galleon Sacramento (1668) attest to (Guilmartin 1982:134–138; Hoskins 2003:45–46). However, only a few other Dutch composite guns are known worldwide (Brinck 2020a:27).
The desired physical qualities of clay and alternative acceptable compounds for making moulds are also mentioned by Biringuccio (Smith and Gnuci 1990:218–220).
According to Barker, this addition lowered the melting point of the alloy guaranteeing the function of the reservoir but would have not affected the composition of the actual casting (Barker 1982:71).
Mechanical properties of bronze castings are also conditioned by other microstructural characteristics such as dendrite arm spacing, macro- and micro-segregation, morphology and distribution of inclusions, which in turn are conditioned by the casting technique (Taşliçukur et al. 2012).
Some defects in ships’ guns, such as a deviation in the bore alignment and inner gas voids shown by a media-culebrina (demi-culverin) recovered from El Gran Grifon (1588), could seriously affect their effectiveness in action, yet it passed for service (Martin 1984:284–285).
This fruitful nexus between both industries remained for a while; to some extent, the production of bronze guns in continental Europe during the sixteenth century was still in charge of bell founders (Hoskins 2003:46–47). On the other hand, López Martin posed that bell founders made guns at an early stage, but once gunfounding was developed, it was more usual to find gunfounders casting bells and other items than vice versa (López Martin 2011:365–367).
Defective and/or broken bronze guns have been also reported in several sixteenth-century shipwrecks (e.g. Martin 1972:63; Mihajlović et al. 2018:14–17). If this evidence stands for old pieces transported as cargo/ballast, guns exploded on board during firing or post-depositional processes, is an issue not easy to solve. In certain underwater contexts, mechanical and erosion conditions can also largely affect bronze guns (see van Duivenvoorde 2010).
The addition of lead in higher quantities, even if it was prejudicial, was acknowledged as a formula to reduce the cost of guns (López-Martín 2011:357).
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Acknowledgements
The authors are very grateful to Lina Berglund (Thermo-Calc Software AB), Mercedes Gallardo Abárzuza and José M. Higueras-Milena Castellano (Tanit Gestión Arqueológica S.C.), Juan González García (University of Cadiz), Giovanni Luigi Ernst (Pro Heraldica), Malcolm Mercer and Richard Noyce (Tower of London), Igor Mihajlović (Croatian Conservation Institute), Peter Northover (Research Laboratory for Archaeology and the History of Art), Luis Miguel Rodriguez Jaren (University of Cadiz), Jan Schlürmann (Schleswig-Holstein State Parliament), Joanne Thomson (Royal Artillery Museum), and Ralf Weichmann (Museum for Hamburg History), for their support and information provided. Also, a special thanks to Ben van Doesburgh (Semeijns de Vries van Doesburgh foundation), Trina Brown, and Erin Clements Rushing (Smithsonian Libraries and Archives), for their generous assistance with Figs. 15 and 17. To the anonymous reviewer, whose valuable insights allowed us to improve the original draft.
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This research was developed with the support of the Society for Archaeological Sciences, through the SAS ECR Research Support Award (2021), granted to Nicolás C. Ciarlo. His studies at the University of Cadiz were also supported by the National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), through the Support Program for International Research Stays. The equipment and funding to conduct the characterisation of samples were provided by Manuel Bethencourt, chair of the Laboratory of Studies and Conservation of Culture Heritage (LEC-PH) at the University of Cadiz, through a grant from the Spanish State Research Agency, Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities (State Plan I + D + i 2017–2020, EQC2018-004947-P).
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Conceptualization: Nicolás C. Ciarlo; Methodology: Nicolás C. Ciarlo and Manuel Bethencourt; Formal analysis and investigation: Nicolás C. Ciarlo and Josefa Martí Solano; Conservation and digital recording of samples: Elisa Fernández Tudela; Statistical analysis of compositional data: Andrés Zuccolotto Villalobos; Writing—original draft preparation: Nicolás C. Ciarlo and Josefa Martí Solano; Writing—review and editing: Nicolás C. Ciarlo; Funding acquisition: Nicolás C. Ciarlo and Manuel Bethencourt; Resources: Nicolás C. Ciarlo, Josefa Martí Solano, Manuel Bethencourt, Ernesto J. Toboso Suárez, and Raúl González Gallero; Fieldwork coordination: Ernesto J. Toboso Suárez, and Raúl González Gallero; Supervision of reported work: Nicolas C. Ciarlo and Josefa Martí Solano. All authors agree to publish this article.
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Ciarlo, N.C., Solano, J.M., Bethencourt, M. et al. New remarks on the mid-17th-century gunfounding in Northern Europe: archaeometric analysis of scrap bronze ordnance recovered from a Dutch merchant vessel lost off Cadiz, Spain. Archaeol Anthropol Sci 15, 136 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-023-01835-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12520-023-01835-z